


Harry Potter, except everyone is trans and JK Rowling can die by my blade

by FromTheMouthofKings



Series: To Welcome You Home [1]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Everyone Is Trans Because Death of the Author, Gen, Implied/Referenced Homophobia, Minerva McGonagall & all her Gryffindor kids, More tags to be added, Nonbinary Harry Potter, Nonbinary Luna Lovegood, One-Sided Draco Malfoy/Harry Potter, Ron and Ginny swap genders, Slight AU - Everyone Is Friends Sooner, Trans Character, Trans Ginny Weasley, Trans Harry Potter, Trans Hermione Granger, Trans Luna Lovegood, Trans Neville Longbottom, Trans Ron Weasley, Transphobia, background aroace Charlie, background nonbinary polyamarous Bill, trans minerva mcgonagall
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-11
Updated: 2021-01-25
Packaged: 2021-03-04 04:15:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 11,341
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24667480
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FromTheMouthofKings/pseuds/FromTheMouthofKings
Summary: Harry had always known that he was different.Ron's mother had always wanted a girl.Hermione got a letter addressed with her real name.“It is very brave,” McGonagall said softly, “to be true to who you are, even when other people tell you you’re wrong.”
Relationships: Harry Potter & Ron Weasley, Hermione Granger & Harry Potter, Hermione Granger & Harry Potter & Ron Weasley, Hermione Granger & Neville Longbottom & Harry Potter & Ron Weasley, Luna Lovegood & Ginny Weasley
Series: To Welcome You Home [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1988461
Comments: 135
Kudos: 536
Collections: Harry Potter Fanfiction Favorites, The Witch's Woods, Trans Rights are Human Rights ( a.k.a: fuck TERFs )





	1. Brave

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> JK Rowling is being a transphobe on main again, apparently, so I found myself compelled to start writing this out of spite. I'm not sure exactly what shape it's going to take just yet, but there will definitely be trans!Ginny and trans!Neville coming up, and also probably some trans!Luna and closeted queer!Draco.
> 
> Edit: There have been some transphobic comments made here so I would like to say: please do not leave transphobic comments on this fic and please do not harass me or fellow commenters. I think I've deleted all the comments, but if not, let me know. If the issue continues, I will use the report abuse form and start moderating comments. I would like to keep this a positive and constructive space.
> 
> Edit 2: Having taken some time to think about this, I would also like to make sure it's clear that the title of this fic is a reference to the idea of death of the author, and is not intended to be a threat or to encourage violence. Though the feelings of anger and betrayal that I feel and that I think many other trans Harry Potter fans share in response to Ms. Rowling's comments are very understandable and, I think, valid, I am not endorsing any kind of abuse of her. If you find the title of this fic triggering, that is also valid and understandable, but I would encourage you to read elsewhere. 
> 
> What I do wholeheartedly endorse is taking whatever hurt and anger you might be feeling and using it as fuel for kindness, for creativity, and for the fight for transgender liberation. :)

When Professor Minerva McGonagall showed up at the Grangers’ door one sunny day in the middle of July to tell Mr. and Mrs. Granger that their child was a witch, Hermione nearly cried. Not because Professor McGonagall looked down at her like she was already forming expectations of Hermione that Hermione had better start living up to at once--though she did. Not because Hermione had just learned that there was something strange and unusual about her--Hermione had known _that_ for almost all of her short life. Not even because she was afraid of leaving home to go to this strange, magical school--Hermione loved her parents, but that didn’t mean they couldn’t be a bit, well...overbearing, sometimes. No, Hermione, stubborn and determined and brilliant and _brave_ as she was, wanted to cry because Professor McGonagall, sat primly on the modest green sofa in the Grangers’ sitting room in her neat green robes and witch’s hat like something out of a story book, said, “This is for you, Miss Granger,” and handed Hermione a letter that had _her name_ on it. The name that Hermione had picked out of a book of Shakespeare that her parents had let her read even though they thought that she was probably a little too young to fully understand it just yet, and that Hermione had struggled through anyway. Her _name_ , the name of the beautiful queen who nobody listens to, the queen who dies, whose body is transformed, who comes back again from the dead and is listened to, understood, _vindicated._ Her _real name_ , the name that her parents said that she could change to be her legal one once she got a little older, if she still wanted to. 

Hermione took the envelope, trembling, and then sat there staring at the address, listening very hard while her parents asked Professor McGonagall every question they could think of about the magical world.

“Will--she--be safe, in this world of yours?” Mr. Granger asked, stumbling over Hermione’s pronouns a little, like he was still wont to do every now and again. 

Professor McGonagall took a long, shrewd look over Hermione through her rectangular-framed spectacles, taking in her brown skin, her small, boyish frame, her thick cloud of bushy hair, the dark, trembling eyes that she raised to meet McGonagall’s own. McGonagall sighed. “Nothing is ever entirely safe for children like your daughter, as I am sure you are already well aware. Magical Britain is much like its non-magical counterpart, in that respect. But I can promise you that while she is at school, I will do everything in my power to ensure that she is kept safe, and that she will be treated with the dignity and respect that any promising young witch of her age deserves.” 

As she was leaving, Professor McGonagall stopped on the doorstep for just a moment, looking down at Hermione with something firm about her mouth and something suspiciously bright in her eyes. “It is very _brave_ ,” she said softly, “to be true to who you are, even when other people tell you you’re wrong.” And then she was gone. 

After McGonagall left, Hermione stared out the sitting room window, watching a tabby cat sit very still on the garden wall outside while her parents argued about whether or not to send her to magic school. She was holding the thick, cream-colored envelope very carefully in her hands. It was bursting with the names of marvelous-sounding books and fantastical instruments and a letter, written in green ink in Professor McGonagall’s precise, neat handwriting, and it had _her name_ on it.

“John, we know that things will be hard for her no matter what we do,” her mother was saying, behind Hermione and somewhat to the left. “Shouldn’t we give her all the opportunities that we can? That’s always what we’ve said we wanted for--for her.”

“I know, Margaret, I know. But can’t we keep her safer here, in the world we know, close to us where she belongs? She might be, might be magical, but she’s still our daughter.”

The cat outside the window blinked crispy at Hermione. It had rectangular markings around its eyes very much like Professor McGonagall’s rectangular-shaped glasses. Hermione had a letter in her lap, bursting full of magic and new things to learn, and _it had her name on it._

Hermione turned around. “Mum, Dad,” she said. “I want to go.”

*

Harry had always known that he was different than his aunt and his uncle and his cousin. Different from all the people who lived along the quiet, conservative, hedged-in Privet Drive. There was his dark, unruly hair, his brown skin, his knobbly knees and his hand-me-down clothes, his bright green eyes behind his taped-together glasses and his lightning-shaped scar. Strange things always happened around him, and yet, no one seemed to notice anything. He wanted to explain it, really he did, but he just couldn’t. And there was something else, too, something he didn’t quite know how to think about, how to say. When Hagrid knocked down the door of the little hut on the rock and told him that he was a wizard, he thought, could that be it? Could that be the reason that he had felt so strange and wrong all this time? He was a wizard? 

He couldn’t quite get up the courage to ask Hagrid about it, and in that whirlwind day of magic and shopping and talking and trying his best not to ask too many questions, he hardly thought about it, anyway. Hagrid, Hogwarts, Diagon Alley--it was so bright and wild and colorful, and Harry was so happy that the day almost didn’t feel real, and his life at Number Four Privet Drive felt, to Harry, very far away. He had a whole month, though, after Hagrid put him on the train back to Little Winging, to think about it as much as he liked. While Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon were furiously ignoring him, and Dudley was hiding or casting terrified looks at him out of the corners of his eyes, Harry thought, was that it? Was it just that he had been a wizard, without knowing it, all this time?

*

Molly Weasley had always wanted a daughter, and since she’d only had the one, Ron thought, she must have decided to make do with what she’d got. Nevermind that Ron refused, point-blank, to wear her hair long, was always grimy, always grass-stained, always whining that she wanted to play quidditch with her brothers in the apple orchard. Nevermind that Ron insisted that her name was _Ron_ \--not Ronnie, not Veronica, but Ron. Nevermind that Ron wasn’t, in fact, very girlish at all. She was still Molly’s only daughter, and Ron thought that at some point, her mum had just given up and resigned herself to making do with Ron, as feminine as she was or not. Ron had overheard her talking to Dad one time, after Ron had put up a fuss, again, about being forced to wear a frilly pink dress to one of the many Weasley cousin’s wedding showers. “It’s what comes of growing up with so many brothers,” Mum had fretted, and Dad had said, “ _Molly_ ,” gently and with just a little hint of reproval in his tone. 

“Well, you know I support Bill and his partners,” she had said reluctantly, “and if Charlie is serious about not wanting anyone but his dragons, you know, I’ll do my best to make certain he’s happy, but I just hoped...she’s our only daughter, you know…”

“She’s our daughter and it’s our job to support her, no matter what she wants,” Dad had said quietly, and Ron had backed away from the kitchen door and crept back up to her room, had laid back across the orange bedspread and stared and the players zipping around on her quidditch posters, not knowing how to feel. 

*

The Dursleys dropped Harry off at King’s Cross Station with a cart full of luggage and an owl in a cage and a ticket to a place that didn’t exist, and they drove away laughing. Harry approached the family with the bright red hair and asked, shyly, how to get onto the platform, and Molly said, “First time at Hogwarts? Ron is new, too,” and showed him how to get on the train. Then the Weasleys gathered by the side of the gleaming red engine. 

“Ron, you have something on your nose,” Molly said, with a certain air of resigned despair. Over Ron’s protests, she tried to scrub it off, then smoothed down Ron’s hair and shirt, then smoothed down her hair one last time.

“Mum--stop it,” Ron said, squirming away. 

The Weasleys who would be going to Hogwarts this year said their goodbyes and got on the train, and their youngest sibling began to cry. Ron joined Harry in his compartment, and Fred and George looked in for just long enough to introduce themselves and say, “This is Ron, our sister.” Then they left for Lee Jordan’s tarantula, and Harry did a double take. 

“Sorry,” Harry said to Ron, “but I thought…” he trailed off. It felt stupid to say it out loud. 

“What?” said Ron.

“Until they said that I thought...that you were a boy,” Harry admitted sheepishly. “I don’t mind, though! You being a girl,” he added quickly, feeling his cheeks heat up.

“Oh,” Ron said. There was a strange feeling in the pit of her stomach, and the tips of her ears turned red. 

*

Ron was sorted into Gryffindor like her older brothers. Harry joined her, and, though he didn’t know it, joined the house of his parents as well. Hermione stood before Professor McGonagall and the dusty, patched, and faded hat, like a witch’s hat out of a story book. She heard her name called (her real name!). She sat on the stool and had the hat lowered over her head, heavy and strange, and it offered her the chance to be intelligent or the chance to be brave. She remembered what Professor McGonagall had said, about being true to yourself when other people told you you were wrong, and she chose to be brave. “GRYFFINDOR,” the hat said. 

After dinner, Percy Weasley walked the group of first years up to the Gryffindor common room and pointed out the dormitory doors. “Girls on the right, boys on the left,” and the group split. Hermione went right. McGonagall had promised her that she would be treated with the same respect that any other witch her age was owed, and had assured her that this extended to a spot in the girls’ dorm. Harry turned to his very first new friend and said a reluctant good night, heading left. Ron went right, and, with an unaccountable feeling of dread, and trying not to think about how she’d never shared a room with a group of girls before, started climbing the girls’ dormitory stairs. 

Almost at once, the stairs collapsed into a smooth slide, and Ron landed in a heap again at the bottom of it. For a moment, everybody froze. Hermione looked back from where she had just made it to the top of the staircase and was beginning to go into the dorm. Harry paused where he was, half-way up the boys’ stair. A knot of people were gathered near the entryway to the dormitories, and after a moment of silence, a burst of chattering and laughter erupted in the room. 

Fred and George were there. “Hey there, Ickle Ronnie-kins, are you okay?” one of them said, reaching down to pick her up off the floor. She kept her head down, her face a burning red. The other twin said, “The staircase usually only does that for boys. Are you not enough of a girl to get in, little Ronnie?” That got a laugh out of the crowd, but Harry saw Percy blanch suddenly white, and saw tears starting to form in Ron’s eyes. He started slowly to walk back down the stair. 

“I’m going to fetch Professor McGonagall. Wait right here,” Percy said, and hurriedly left. Ron roughly pulled herself out of her brother’s grip and scrubbed at her eyes with her sleeve. Harry joined her at the bottom of the stairs. “Are you alright?” he asked in an undertone, as the knot of people around them began to disperse. 

“Fine,” Ron said angrily, still rubbing tears off of her face, though more kept falling as quickly as she removed them. 

Much to Harry’s surprise, Hermione Granger slid carefully down the slide and joined them. “I’ve read about this stair,” she told them quietly, looking at Ron very curiously. “It’s enchanted so that only girls can walk on it, so if any boys tried to sneak into the girls’ dorm, they would slip right back down again.” 

“Nobody asked you,” Ron said savagely, still crying, and Hermione looked hurt and turned away, but Harry noticed that she didn’t try to leave. He supposed she didn’t have anywhere to go other than up the unclimbable slide into the dorms, anyway. 

Percy got back very quickly, and the sight of the stern, tidy Professor McGonagall climbing through the awkwardly-placed portrait hole was somewhat distracting to Harry. Once through, McGonagall straightened herself up and surveyed the little scene at the bottom of the dormitory stair. 

“Everybody, step back from the dormitory doors, please,” she said. “The staircase will put itself right as soon as everyone is clear.”

All the students shuffled obediently away from the doors, and the stairs folded themselves back out into existence almost immediately. Most of the girls who had been waiting to go up left, chatting with each other and seeming unconcerned with the minor delay that their nights had taken. Professor McGonagall turned to Ron, then, and her face seemed to soften slightly. She beckoned Ron closer, into a quiet corner of the common room, and Harry and Hermione followed, Percy hovering just behind. 

“What happened?” she asked quietly. Percy began to speak, but she held up a hand to shush him, looking closely at Ron. 

Ron’s eyes skirted the floor, and her freckled face was still beet red. “I tried to climb up the stair, and then it did that,” she muttered to her feet. 

“I see,” said Professor McGonagall evenly. She looked at Ron another long moment, before saying, “Come with me, please.” Ron looked terrified, casting a desperate, pleading glance at Harry before following her out, but there wasn’t anything Harry could do but watch. He sat down in an overstuffed armchair to wait for Ron to get back, because she was currently his only friend, and anyway, it was the least he could do. 

Hermione Granger surprised him again by doing the same. She didn’t say anything, just looked away into the fire while Harry watched the portrait hole, waiting for Ron to get back. 

*

Ron followed Professor McGonagall through the halls, quietly panicking. What had she managed to do wrong? It was only the first night, and somehow she had already gotten herself into trouble. She looked up at McGonagall’s back--McGonagall was striding purposefully through the halls, and Ron had to hurry a little to keep up. Was she very angry? Ron had seen her mother explode plenty of times, and she didn’t think so--but then why wasn’t McGonagall saying anything? And where was she taking her?

At last, McGonagall stopped before a door, unlocked it with a wave of her wand, and ushered Ron inside. It looked to be a small office, with a large desk taking up most of the space, along with three walls of bookshelves and a couple of chairs set in front of it, clearly for students. 

“Take a seat,” Professor McGonagall said, gesturing to these chairs. She closed the door behind Ron and walked around her to sit on the other side of the desk.

Ron sat down, looking around apprehensively. Professor McGonagall folded her hands in front of her on the desk and gave Ron a long, even stare, and Ron fidgeted, uncomfortable under the scrutiny. “Sorry, Professor,” she said after a minute of this. “But...am I in trouble?”

Professor McGonagall didn’t speak for another long moment, then said, “No.” 

“Oh,” said Ron, and then couldn’t think of a single other thing to say. 

“Have a biscuit,” McGonagall said abruptly, pushing a tin towards Ron. 

“No thank you, Professor,” Ron said. “I just ate at the feast…”

“Have. A. Biscuit,” McGonagall said again, in a manner that reminded Ron strongly of her mother. She obediently opened the tin and found that it was full of ginger newts. 

She took one and bit into it reluctantly. 

“Miss Weasley--” McGonagall started to say, then stopped herself and said, “Ron.”

Ron looked at her, mouth full of ginger newt. 

“Do you feel that you might not be a girl?”

Ron choked on the ginger newt.

*

Harry and Hermione were still waiting up in the common room when Ron slouched back in, ears still red, shepherded by Professor McGonagall. 

“Mr. Potter! Miss Granger! Excellent,” she said crisply. “Miss Granger, would you be so good as to fetch Mr. Weasley’s things down so that he can move them into the boys’ dorm?” 

Hermione looked wide-eyed for a moment, then nodded quickly and hurried away to the girls’ dormitory. Harry looked between her and Professor McGonagall and Ron, confused. 

“Mr. Potter, please meet her at the bottom of the stairs and help her carry Mr. Weasley’s things up into the boy’s dorm, thank you,” she said, and swept Ron off up the stairs. 

Harry met Hermione at the bottom of the staircase, taking Scabbers’ cage from her and steadying one end of the trunk. “Hermione,” he said quietly to her, “I don’t understand. Is Ron a boy or a girl, or not…?” 

She set down the other end of the trunk and bit her lip, looking at him seriously. “Well, I don’t know for sure,” she said. “You would have to ask Ron for yourself. But I’m guessing that...he? Is transgender, like, like, like…” she took a deep breath. “Like me.”

Harry stared at her, nonplussed. “What?”

She sighed at him. “It means that you’re assigned one gender at birth…” Seeing that she was losing him, she said, “It means, you have the body of a girl, but you feel like you’re a boy.” 

Harry said, “Oh,” trying to imagine what that would feel like. How would he feel if he had the body of a girl? He didn’t know. The idea made him feel strange. “Is that...that’s what you are?”

“Yes, but the other way around,” said Hermione. Harry thought she looked rather pink under her dark skin. “I have a boy’s body, but I’m a girl. And I’m _guessing_ ,” she said, “that Ron is a boy, since she, or he, couldn’t get into the girl’s dormitory.”

“Oh,” said Harry again, still caught on the idea of what it would be like to have a girl’s body, and now trying to imagine what it would be like if he, as he was right now, felt like he was a girl. “I see,” he said, though he didn’t know if he did. 

“Anyway,” Hermione said briskly, pushing her hair back away from her cheeks and picking up the trunk again. “We should bring these things up for Ron.”

“Yeah,” said Harry, and helped her carry up the trunk.

When they got into the first year boy’s dorm, Ron was standing, head ducked and ears red, to the side, while Seamus, Dean, and Neville watched curiously, and McGonagall stood with her wand in the air, having apparently just summoned an extra bed for the room. 

“Ah, Mr. Potter, Miss Granger,” she said, as Harry and Hermione came in, puffing and pulling Ron’s heavy trunk. “Please give Mr. Weasley his things.” She waited while they did so, then addressed the whole room and said, “Now, I want you all to know that here at Hogwarts, we strictly support students’ rights to their gender self-identity, and if I hear that _anyone_ \--” she looked sharply around the room-- “is giving a student difficulties for how they identify, I will personally ensure that they are expelled. Do I make myself clear?” 

Everyone in the room dutifully agreed, and McGonagall nodded crisply. “Very well, then. I wish you all a restful night of sleep before the start of classes tomorrow,” she said, and left them to it.

As soon as she was out the door, Hermione at once turned to Ron and said, “So, how do you...what would you like us to…”

Ron scratched the back of his head awkwardly. “Well, I...I guess I’m a boy?” he said with a little bit of a laugh. He seemed to be trying to keep his voice and expression light, but Harry thought he looked very uncomfortable under all the staring. 

“Great,” Harry said at once, having no idea what one was supposed to say in a situation like this, but wanting, for Ron’s sake, to do his best.

“Okay,” Hermione said eagerly. “We’ll call you a boy, then, and use he/him/his pronouns for you, and everything. And let me know if there’s anything I can do to help you, or if any books I can recommend, let me know. Because, I’m--I’m actually transgender too.”

“Great,” said Ron, looking down at the floor. “Thanks, I’ll...I’ll do that.” There was an awkward stretch of silence. 

Harry quickly said, “Well, good night, then, Hermione,” hoping to break the tension. 

Hermione wished them both a cheery good night and departed, and much to Harry’s (and he suspected Ron’s) relief, their other dormmates stopped staring and began chattering amongst themselves. 

Ron slowly moved to start unpacking his trunk, and Harry moved up beside him, under the pretext of helping. “So, you’re a boy then?” he asked in an undertone.

“Yeah.” Ron glanced at him sidelong, his eyes half-shielded by his bangs. “Do you...do you mind?”

“No,” said Harry immediately. “Not at all. I just...how does that work?” Hermione’s explanation had left him with more questions than answers, it felt. 

“Well, it’s like my oldest brother,” said Ron, seeming to relax, and to perk up a bit now that the eyes of the whole dorm weren’t fixed on him. “Bill, he’s the one off being a curse-breaker in Egypt, like I told you on the train. He says that he doesn’t really consider himself a woman or a man, except for convenience’s sake, because gender is what you feel like, and not about what, ah,” he blushed, “what parts you have, right?” 

“Right,” Harry said slowly. Maybe he’d just had some more time to think about it since Hermione’s explanation, but Ron’s explanation seemed to make a lot more sense to him. 

After Ron was done unpacking, the first year Gryffindors all fell into bed, exhausted. It had been a very long day. As he was drifting off, though, Harry kept thinking about what Ron had said about his brother, who didn’t consider himself a woman or a man. Harry wondered, as he fell asleep, what that would be like. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It physically hurt me to refer to Ron with "she" pronouns, but I felt like it was the best option, when speaking from various characters' points of view, until he decided to come out? If you have other suggestions, or just want to come talk to me about everyone in Harry Potter being queer, come hit me up on tumblr @fromthemouthofkings!


	2. Revelations

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This kind of got away from me a bit, but we'll get to Ginny and Draco soon, I promise.
> 
> Warnings on this chapter for slight outing, depictions of panic attacks and gender dysphoria, and mentions/depictions of institutionalization (the Longbottoms).

Ron and McGonagall had talked for a long time, in her office, the night of the Welcoming Feast. After the initial stretch of silence, and McGonagall’s sudden question, and after Ron had choked and spluttered his airway free of ginger newt, he had asked her, “Do I _what_?”

“Do you feel,” she repeated calmly, “that you might not be a girl?”

“How could I not be a girl?” Ron asked her blankly.

McGonagall cracked a small, wry smile. “Not everyone is,” she said, and Ron, after a moment of surprise, realized that that had been something approaching a joke. McGonagall continued, “Not everyone is a boy, either. I happen to know, from when he was one of my students, that your oldest sibling identifies himself as neither one of the binary genders.” She looked at Ron steadily. “And some people who are born one binary gender identify themselves with the other. I, for example, was born Malcom McGonagall, a name that was quickly passed onto my younger brother, as I knew from a very young age that I was not a boy, even though I was assigned that gender at birth. But it can take others much longer to understand themselves. And genders can change, of course.”

A strange feeling was growing in the pit of Ron’s stomach. He felt wide open, exposed. “I’m not--” he said loudly. “I can’t be--” He wanted his voice to be firm and steady, but instead it wavered like the wailing of the ghoul that lived above his bedroom.

McGonagall said nothing, just raised one eyebrow.

“I’m a girl!” Ron almost shouted, standing up. He was, wasn’t he? He was--he was his mother’s only daughter, he was Ron, he was Veronica…

Only, he wasn’t Veronica, was he? He never really had been--the name had never fit him. He thought about all the times his mother had tried to get him to wear dresses, had chided him for following around after his brothers, fretted that he needed to sit properly, look neat and ladylike… And he thought about Harry, how strange he had felt when Harry said he thought Ron was a boy. Strange and almost light? Excited, even?

Ron realized he was shaking. He felt like he was going to be sick. He couldn’t stop thinking about all the times that his mother had called Bill a man, or a boy, and Bill had said, “I’m not a man, Mum, I’m just me.” It had been an ongoing point of contention between the two of them for years, but that was just Bill, wasn’t it? It had never been Ron, Ron had never thought he could be…

McGonagall had gotten up from her chair as well, looking alarmed. “Miss Weasley,” she was saying. “Ron.”

Ron wanted her to stop looking at him. He wanted to hide, to creep back up to his bedroom at the top of the Burrow and lay there on his back until all the thoughts in his head and all the jangling nerves in his muscles were still. He looked at McGonagall, feeling stricken.

“Ron,” McGonnagall said quietly. “Please inhale fully and then exhale.”

Ron realized he was hyperventilating and forced himself to take a slow, shaky breath.

“Very good,” McGonagall said. “May I take your arm?”

Ron had no idea what she was asking, but he nodded, just trying to breathe, and McGonagall gently took hold of his arm and pushed him back down into the chair he had recently vacated. She sat in the chair beside him as he slowly regained control of himself. It could have been awkward, but Ron was too focused on pushing air in and out of his lungs to care.

After a while, McGonagall spoke softly. “I apologize.”

Ron was still feeling like if he opened his mouth he might be sick, so he settled for giving her an incredulous look.

“I assumed that since the staircase had rejected you, you must be ready to talk about your gender, but clearly that was a mistaken assumption. I apologize.”

Ron didn’t know how to feel. He felt wrung out. “What’s wrong with the staircase?” he asked. “Why couldn’t I go up?”

“The staircase to the Gryffindor girls’ dormitory is enchanted so that only women and girls may use it. If anyone else attempts to step foot on it, the staircase is transfigured into a steep slide, as you witnessed for yourself tonight.”

Ron felt a deep feeling of dread welling up inside him. “So you’re saying that I’m not a girl.”

McGonagall regarded him seriously. “Gender is something that we each define for ourselves,” she said. “The only metric the enchantment on the staircase has to determine whether or not a person is a girl is the way that they perceive themselves. It is designed to reject those who do not identify with womanhood.” She peered closely at Ron. “And perhaps those who are experiencing sufficient levels of uncertainty about their gender, as well.”

Ron didn’t say anything for a while, mulling over what she had said. It made sense, and it tallied with what Bill had told him about gender. And he certainly didn’t identify himself as a girl. He’d always sort of assumed he must be one, of course, but he’d never really liked the idea very much.

McGonagall seemed to take pity on him after a while, and said, “The only one who can determine whether or not you are a girl is you, Miss Weasley. If you would like, I can consult with the headmaster and have the enchantment removed, so that you can enter the girls’ dormitory as you please. In fact,” she said, suddenly frowning, “I think I will be doing that anyway. It’s an antiquated spell, and we certainly wouldn’t want to put another student in the position of being exposed in a way that they don’t wish to be.” She paused. “I am sorry that it happened to you.”

“But it was right, though,” Ron said with a rising feeling of despair. “I’m not a girl--I don’t think I am a girl.”

McGonagall regarded him calmly. “Is there another gender that you think you might be?” she asked. “There are various other options.”

Ron thought about Bill, then thought about when Harry had thought he was a boy, how it had made him feel. Happy, he decided. Strangely joyful even, maybe...elated? “I think...I might be a boy,” he said slowly, trying it out. It felt good to say it. Like lying on his back in his bedroom at home. Solid and stable and good.

“Alright,” McGonagall said simply. “We shall assume that you are a boy, then, for the time present. You can, of course, always change your mind later if you come to feel that ‘boy’ is not the right term for you. Now, what would you like to do about it? My previous offer still stands. I can talk to Professor Dumbledore, and we can remove the enchantment from the girls’ dormitory stairs. You may stay there for as long as you wish. Or, if you like, I can find you another place to sleep, instead. You didn’t ask for this, and you don’t have to tell anyone until you’re ready to. You don’t have to tell anyone at all. It’s entirely your decision.”

Ron thought about it. He thought about how it had felt to have Harry assume he was a boy. Thought about how it would feel if everyone assumed he was a boy. “No,” he said. “That’s alright. I think I want people to know.”

“Very well then, Mr. Weasley.” McGonagall smiled at him. “Let’s move you into the boys’ dormitory.”

On the walk back to Gryffindor tower, McGonagall said to Ron, in the same even manner that she’d kept up all along, “Have you thought about how your parents will react to this? I know your eldest sibling has had some trouble getting your mother to adjust to his identity, and I am enough acquainted with her to know that she is rather set on the idea of having a daughter.”

Ron, who was just beginning to feel a little bit better, immediately began to feel sick again. “I don’t know,” he said. “I mean, Dad will be fine with it, I guess…”

McGonagall strode on for a minute in silence before saying, “If you would like me to send your mother an owl explaining the situation to her, I would be happy to do so. I might remind her that as she would never dream of calling me a man, she ought to lend the same respect to you.”

“Thank you, Professor,” said Ron, feeling somewhat awed that McGonagall, who he had mostly heard about from the twins as a strict disciplinarian, would offer to take on his mother for him, “but that’s alright. I’m sure Percy is already writing to her, and whatever happens…” He shrugged uncomfortably. “It’ll be alright.”

“Very well,” McGonagall said. “You may let me know at any time if you change your mind.”

Then they were at the portrait hole, and Ron was spared from having to answer her and instead began to contemplate the indignity of facing the rest of Gryffindor house again after his embarrassing mishap with the stairs.

*

At breakfast the next morning, the school was full of whispers. Many concerning the Boy Who Lived-- _Did you see his face? Did you see his scar?_ \--but plenty, too, about the boy who sat next to him. _The tall kid with the red hair. --Did you hear about what happened? The staircase_ \-- More than a few people stood up at their respective house tables to crane their necks over and try to get a glimpse of the two.

Ron sunk low down in his seat next to Harry, his ears red and a dark blush creeping up his pale, freckled face. “Don’t they have something better to talk about besides us?” he muttered to Harry.

Harry shrugged. He was trying his best to ignore the stares and whispers, and to concentrate on his bacon, and the novelty of eating something that Aunt Petunia hadn’t made him help cook for a change. It was better to be stared at for his supposed fame, he thought, than yelled at by his uncle over breakfast, though he didn’t think that saying as much to Ron would cheer him up.

“It’s just that you’re new and unusual,” Hermione Granger said confidently from where she had sat herself across the table from Harry and Ron. “They’ll get bored of you eventually.”

Ron looked like he was about to snap at her, but he was interrupted by Percy, who came up from behind him and said, rather stiffly, “Ah, Ron, I was looking for you.”

Ron turned slowly in his seat to face his brother. Percy, Harry thought, looked slightly nervous; he was fidgeting slightly with the hems of his sleeves and there were two pink blotches high on his pale cheeks. Regardless, as soon as Ron was looking, warily, up at him, he launched into speaking. “I just wanted to let you know, Ron, that I am very happy for you and your decision to, erm, be yourself, and I am proud to begin to call you my brother.”

“Er, thanks Perce,” Ron said, looking surprised.

This seemed to be the response Percy was looking for, because he dropped down onto the bench next to Ron, looking relieved. “I’ve already written to Mum, of course, letting her know what’s going on. So you can expect an owl from her by breakfast tomorrow, I’d expect. And if there’s anything I can do--”

He was interrupted by Fred and George, who suddenly sprang up on either side of them, nearly shouting, “Where is he? Where is our new brother?”

“Congratulations, Ron, we’re ever so proud--”

“Always said you made a pathetic excuse for a girl, didn’t we, George?”

“That’s right; it’s about time I’d say--”

“Can’t wait to hear what Mum says, after all that she’s gone on about you being the only girl--”

Ron, who was sinking lower and lower in his seat to try to avoid the extra attention that Fred and George were drawing, looked positively sick at this mention of his mother.

Fred and George carried on, seeming not to notice. “Yes, I wouldn’t want to be you right now--”

There came the sound of someone clearing their throat, and Professor McGonagall, too, had joined the fray. “Mr. Weasley. Mr. Weasley,” she said. “You are causing quite the commotion. Perhaps you ought to sit down.” She did not say it like a suggestion.

“Right you are, Professor,” Fred said jovially, “big day, we ought to eat, get our strength up--”

“Did you hear about our brother? We should do something to celebrate, Fred,” George added quickly.

“I’m thinking Doctor Filibusters’ fireworks in the colors of the trans pride flag,” Fred cheerfully agreed.

“Perhaps a banner with his name and pronouns, just to remind people, you know?”

“That is quite enough of that,” McGonagall said, shooing them down the table. “If I see either of you setting off fireworks on school property I shall confiscate them immediately and you will both receive detention, do I make myself clear?”

“Well, congratulations again, Ron,” Percy said, getting up as well as the twins’ ensuing protests faded into the surrounding babble.

“Thanks,” Ron growled.

As soon as he was gone, Hermione turned to Ron and said in a mercifully hushed tone, “Is your mum going to be upset about it? About you coming out, I mean?”

“I guess we’ll find out tomorrow,” Ron said, stabbing his sausages moodily, and Harry and Hermione exchanged glances and then talked forcedly about the weather for the remainder of the meal.

*

Neville’s grandmother had always stressed to him the importance of being a polite, proper young lady, and he tried. He never really succeeded, but still, he had never thought of himself as unhappy. It was true that he was always too clumsy, too slow, too mundane to be what people hoped for from the granddaughter of the great Augusta Longbottom, the only child of the aurors Frank and Alice. He was too much like a squib--a dangerous word that he only heard spoken when one of his aged relations had had a bit too much to drink at the end of the evening after a late dinner party, or whispered by his grandmother to one of her confidants in the library when he was supposed to be off reading a book or sitting primly and learning to sew, or sneaking off to hex all of the leaves off the old maple trees, like his grandmother had done when she was his age. He was a disappointment, he knew, deep in his bones, but he had long since, and with a sort of resigned quietness, given up on meeting his grandmother’s expectations. He could not help it--he was quiet and soft and cried easily, and his cardigan was always hooked under his ear and his hair ribbons were always coming loose, and he could never remember where he had last left his hairbrush or his quills or his earrings or any of his fairly horrible embroidery projects. But he kept his head down and tried his best to do what his grandmother wanted of him, and he mostly failed, and that was the way of things.

It wasn't until he was eleven or so, with Hogwarts just a year away, that he started to look at himself in the mirror, to see the slowly growing softness of his body and begin to feel uncomfortable in the role he was supposed to be living. He looked at the gentle, round shape of his chest and felt a deep and existential sense of disgust and distress. He felt apart from himself. He felt Wrong.

Though he had never really liked his Great Uncle Algie, Neville had, over the years, internalized a lot of what Algie had said about being a self-described “flaming queer,” so he walked into his grandmother’s library and said, “Gran, I don’t think I’m a girl.”

Once she had gotten over the shock of it, Augusta was actually rather pleased. It showed that some of the old Longbottom spirit, she thought, had gotten into her grandchild after all, even if it had taken a little while to manifest itself. So the next time they went to visit his mother and father at St. Mungo's, she took him to a healer, who said that sex-change potions were a serious decision that Neville couldn’t make until he was older, but that he could in the meanwhile take a potion to neutralize the effects of puberty, and who performed a carefully-controlled transfiguration on Neville’s chest.

After, as they were sitting with his parents, Neville asked Augusta quietly, “What were they going to name me, do you know? If I had been born a boy?”

“Oh, I don’t know dear, they never really had a name picked out until after you were born.”

Her grandchild said nothing, just sat and held his mother’s hand.

Augusta felt a pang in her great, old heart, and said, “Neville, I think. They talked about the name Neville.”

“Alright then. My name is Neville.” He looked earnestly into his mother’s eyes like she would understand him, and Augusta had often doubted the amount of faith that Neville placed in his parents’ quiet smiles, but this time, she hoped that he was right.

*

As the news of Ron’s outing swept around the school, that first day of class, Neville thought about keeping his head down, avoiding the subject. Though anyone who knew his grandmother had also known him as a little girl, there was no reason for most of his classmates to know that he’d ever been anything other than ordinary, boring Neville Longbottom. But Ron hadn’t had a choice about who knew that he was trans, and Hermione had more or less announced it to the whole Gryffindor boy’s dormitory. And the Sorting Hat had told him he was brave. So later that afternoon, he quietly sought out both Ron and Hermione, separately and alone, and told them, “I’m transgender too.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's important to me that though Ron is (as someone pointed out last chapter) kind of outed by the staircase, he still gets to control some things about how that information about himself is shared and what happens next. 
> 
> If you want to talk to me about Harry Potter characters being trans, please leave a comment or come yell at me on Tumblr @fromthemouthofkings!


	3. Fallout

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning for some explicit transphobia and misgendering in this chapter--it's only been implied thus far, but it's a little more explicit here, and I've upped the warning in the tags accordingly. That said, this fic isn't out to hurt you. It may have been begun out of spite, but it has become a labor of love, and my goal is that though we're dealing with some difficult things at times here, on the whole the fic is going to be positive. I want to reclaim Hogwarts as a safe place :3

Even as Ron and Harry were struggling to find their first class of the day (History of Magic), dodging whispers and stares--“Even the portraits are whispering, the nosey gits,” Ron complained to Harry, “I mean, come on--” a commotion was beginning at the Burrow. 

In her small, bright bedroom in the house that felt very big with all the empty spaces left in it, Ginny heard her mother call, “Arthur!” in the voice she used when she was exceedingly shocked. 

Dad’s answering mumble from somewhere else in the house sounded distracted--he was getting ready for work--but the sound was moving down toward the kitchen, where Mum was making breakfast. Ginny bolted down the stairs in her dressing gown to get there first. 

Mum was standing in the middle of the kitchen staring at a roll of parchment, her wand stuck in her pocket, her mouth open, a pan of sausages frying and spitting, lively, on the stove behind her forgotten. She did not seem to see or notice Ginny as Ginny sat down at the end of the table and turned her face up expectantly to hear what was so surprising. 

Dad ambled in with his collar held between his teeth, doing up the buttons of his robes with both hands, and said around the cloth, “Is ‘at a letter from Ron, already? Does she say which house she got?”

“No, it’s a letter from Percy,” Mum said absent-mindedly. “Oh, it says she got into Gryffindor.” 

“Good for her,” Dad said amicably, finishing with his collar and moving up to kiss Mum on the cheek from behind, one arm encircling her waist. “And?” he added, and when no further response was forthcoming, he peered over her shoulder to try to read the letter himself. 

“Stop that,” Mum said, swatting at him, upset and distracted and fond and exasperated all at once. 

“What does the letter say?” he prompted gently. 

“It says the staircase wouldn’t let her into the Gryffindor girls’ dormitory,” Mum said, and Ginny felt suddenly caught-out, even though neither of her parents were looking at her. 

“And why would it do that?” Dad asked, with his customary unshakable calm still firmly in place.

“It says that she’s moved into the boy’s dorm and is demanding to be called a boy!”

Ginny’s heart was beating wildly in her chest, and her mind was rapidly being overtaken with the building hope that she had another older sibling like her, but she had enough brainspace left meanwhile to think that it didn’t sound very much like Ron to be demanding to be called anything.

Dad seemed to be having the same thought, because he said, “You mean he’s saying he identifies as a boy?”

“He identifies?!” Mum cried, turning on Dad furiously. “Oh, Arthur, you’re not telling me you intend to take this seriously, are you?” 

“We’ve known for a while that Ron didn’t like to be treated as a girl,” Dad said, unmoved. “We knew that something like this might be a possibility,”

“Nonsense,” Mum said brusquely. “She’ll grow out of it.”

“Or he might not,” said Dad. 

“She’s our only daughter!” Mum exclaimed somewhat hysterically.

“Um,” Ginny said. “Well, actually…”

Neither of her parents seemed to hear her. 

“Ron is our child and it’s our job to support him,” Dad was saying, and Mum was shouting, “Support what? Support her ruining her life with this--” and Dad was saying, “She’s eleven, I hardly think--”

“MUM! DAD!” Ginny shouted, and they were both so surprised they shut up and looked at her. 

Ginny could feel her heart beating in her chest, could feel a lightness and a tingling anticipation in her stomach like taking off from the ground on a broomstick. “I’m a girl,” she said. 

“Don’t be silly, Max dear,” Mum said, the words reflexive and well-used. “You’re too young.”

“No, I mean it,” Ginny said, holding herself high on the painted wooden chair. “I’m a girl.”

“Don’t be silly, Max,” Mum repeated, seeming quite shocked. Dad was looking at Ginny like he was seeing her properly for the first time in years. 

“Alright,” he said. “What would you like us to call you, then? Do you still like Max?”

“Arthur--!”

“Ginny,” Ginny said. 

*

The resulting argument dragged on for much of the morning, making Dad horribly late for work. Once he had finally left, though, and Mum was busy in the kitchen muttering to herself and directing her wand angrily at anything that needed cleaning up, Ginny slipped out of the house and ran away across the hill to visit the Lovegoods’. 

She found Luna sitting pensively on a tree branch in the sunlight, faer face sad and faer long, tangled blonde hair blowing in the wind. Fae smiled when fae saw Ginny though, then frowned when Ginny settled onto the ground beneath the tree without speaking.

Luna laid out on faer stomach along the sturdy branch, hair hanging down around faer face and said, “You seem different.”

Ginny growled in response.

“You have a lot of nargles about you,” Luna said, faer voice muffled by the tree bark. “Did something happen?” 

“I told my parents I’m a girl,” Ginny said. “And I found out Ron’s a boy, apparently.”

Luna made a soft noise of surprise. “That’s lovely for him. And you.”

“Mum didn’t think so,” Ginny said. 

Luna peered down at her. “That would explain the nargles,” fae agreed seriously.

Ginny found she didn’t want to talk about it. “What were you doing before I got here, anyway?”

“Watching for auguries,” Luna said immediately, and launched into an enthusiastic lecture about the birds, which, according to Luna, were not only able to predict death and rainy weather, but also love, solar eclipses, traffic lights, and the end of the world.

“No one has ever heard an augurey’s End Song, of course,” Luna said. Fae had sat back up on the branch and faer feet were swinging enthusiastically as fae talked. “But it’s theorized that it will sound like the hooting of a barn owl in reverse, mixed with a dragon’s roar. Of course, there are others who theorize that it sounds just like their normal call, and the end of the world could be coming at any moment.”

Ginny leaned back against the tree trunk and let Luna’s voice wash over her. She had spent many afternoons here laying on her back in the grass while Luna sat perched in the crook of a branch above her, faer feet swinging over Ginny’s head in their flower-patterned shoes or bare feet as fae talked about this topic or another. Magical creatures were one of Luna’s special interests, as was gender. Luna had spent long hours telling Ginny all about the different gender identities that fae knew about, the variety of different pronouns that the muggle and magical communities had created, and all about how fae identified as trans and as an agender nonbinary girl. Ginny thought she might never have figured out that she was a girl if it weren’t for Luna.

Ginny thought that she could sit and listen to Luna all day.

*

When the sun was starting to sink low in the sky over the hill and Luna’s father had ambled out to smile benignly at Ginny and to ask Luna whether fae wanted pudding or custard for supper, Ginny decided she had better get back the Burrow and face whatever her parents had in store for her. 

Luna hugged Ginny tightly and said, “You can stay here if you like.”

“Thanks,” said Ginny, “but I should go home.”

Luna let her go and looked at her very seriously with faer large blue eyes. “Come back whenever you like, Ginny.”

Ginny smiled at faer with all the strength that she had. “Thanks, Luna.”

She walked back to the Burrow feeling like a bludger was rocketing around in her stomach. Her shadow stretched out in front of her as she walked as slowly as she dared along the dirt road, watching the grass dip and nod beside her. All too soon, she was back on her own front drive, though, staring up at the big, happily lopsided house. She walked up the drive like she was walking through quicksand. The kitchen was spilling yellow light out onto the front garden as the sun set over the hill. She stopped on the front step, looking down at the scatter of loose cauldrons and Wellington boots and old brooms. Her parents must know that she was home by now, they must have seen her walking up the drive.

Behind her, the chicken that she had named Henrietta when it had hatched when she was five was pecking at the drive, scattering loose stones with little jerky motions.

“Shoo!” Ginny said crossly, and the bird ruffled its feathers and hopped a few steps away before resuming its job of pecking at the dirt.

Ginny took a deep breath, put her hand on the door handle, and opened it, and stepped inside, and it was the bravest thing that she had ever done. 

Mum and Dad were waiting for her in the kitchen. Mum was wringing her hands, and her eyes were pink around the edges like she’d been crying, and Dad was smiling down at Ginny with that terribly patient smile of his. Ginny stopped, warily, in the doorway, waiting for them to speak.

“Ginny,” Dad said, still smiling. “Your mother and I want to apologize for how we reacted this morning. It was all a little bit of a surprise, but you know we love you very much and want whatever will be the best for you and Ron.”

Ginny said nothing and looked at her mother, waiting. 

“Ginny,” Mum said, carefully, tremulously. She opened her mouth like she was going to say more, but Ginny found that she had already burst into tears, and she flung herself wordlessly into her mother’s arms before Mum could speak. 

Mum hugged her back, a warm and familiar and well-practiced motion, patting her clumsily on the back and saying, “There, there, now, come now dear,” in a quavery sort of voice.

Ginny was still angry with her--rather furiously so, in fact--but she held on tightly and cried and hoped with all of her strength that things were going to be alright.

*

An owl arrived at the Gryffindor table the next morning, dropped a short scroll of parchment on the table in front of Ron, and then flopped over sideways into a tray of bacon. 

“Errol!” Ron exclaimed, turning white, standing up, grabbing the letter, and trying to shoo the owl off the table. 

Hermione stood up too, and at once began officiously trying to shoo Errol out of the bacon dish. Harry looked at the letter, clutched in Ron’s shaking hand. 

Neville, who had taken to joining them at breakfast, and was sitting across the table with Hermione, said, “Is that from your parents, Ron?”

Ron looked down at the letter like it was going to bite him and said, “Yep.” 

“Well, aren’t you going to open it?” Hermione asked, emerging from a ruffle of feathers as Errol took off for the owlery. 

“I’m getting to it!” Ron snarled at her, hastily slitting the seal on the scroll and unrolling a short letter. He scowled down at the letter, but as he read, a strange look came over his face. 

“What do they say?” asked Hermione impatiently.

“Is it good?” Neville asked, somewhat more gently.

Harry watched his friend apprehensively. He didn’t know what the Dursleys would say if he mailed a letter to Privet Drive telling them that he was actually a girl, but he could only imagine they’d laugh themselves silly at the idea, or worse.

Ron sat down on the Gryffindor bench with a thump.

“Is it bad?” Hermione asked anxiously. “Are they very angry?”

“No,” Ron said slowly. “No, they’re alright.”

“Well, that’s good!” Hermione exclaimed.

“What do they say?” Harry asked quietly.

“They say that they’re surprised but they’ll do their best to support me,” Ron said, sounding stunned. “They say that I’m their...their child and that’s what matters, and whatever.” He glanced up from the parchment, his face red, like he was daring them to laugh at him, but none of them did. “Also, Max is a girl, apparently,” he added, glancing down at the letter again. “That’s my youngest brother--or my sister, I s'pose. Huh. I never would have thought it.”

“That’s really great, Ron!” Hermione said. Ron sat back, looking happy and relieved, as Neville congratulated him as well. Harry grinned at Ron, feeling very relieved, himself. He could see that it meant a lot to Ron to have his parents’ approval, and Harry was happy for him, even if there was also a small part of him that felt a spark of longing for the kind of family that Ron must have. 

“I’m happy for you,” he said honestly, instead of expressing that, and tried to focus on remembering what lessons they had to try and find that day.


	4. Firsts

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Short update this time, folks, but hopefully now that the winter holidays are over I'll have more time to focus on this :)

The Gryffindor first years’ first class, that Tuesday morning, was Transfiguration. McGonagall swept into the classroom in her emerald green robes, with her black hair up in a tight bun and took a long look over the class, including the happily babbling group of Harry, Ron, Hermione, and Neville, and she smiled with a knowing kind of look in her eye. Then she effortlessly called the class to order.

So far, they had had Charms, History of Magic, and Herbology. Harry thought he liked Professor Sprout--she had gone straight through roll call without pausing at his or Ron's names and had gone on to spend the first class period giving them all a tour of the greenhouses, pointing out some of the magical plants that they would be working with this year. He was less sure about Professor Flitwick and Professor Binns--Flitwick had gendered Ron correctly but had shrieked when he got to Harry's name and toppled off the stack of books he stood on (did Hogwarts have no stools, Harry had wondered?), and Binns had simply floated straight through the chalkboard, startling the first years severely, and then had launched directly into a lecture on goblin history without so much as a "good morning."

McGonagall, like Sprout, went briskly through roll call without comment, and then started the lesson. Their first task for the year was learning how to turn matchsticks into needles. The only one who was able to do it was Hermione, who earned a small smile from McGonagall for her success. Harry felt rather discouraged by this until Neville leaned over and asked Hermione how she had done it, and she happily set about correcting his and Harry and Ron's wand movements, which was a little annoying, but extremely helpful.

"I think your matchstick looks a bit sharper," Ron said bracingly to him at the end of the lesson, though Harry wasn't sure he was being entirely honest.

As they were packing up their bags and getting ready to leave after class, she stopped next to Harry and Ron’s desk, and said quietly, “I am very happy for you, Mr. Weasley. I trust your mother and father are quite well?”

“Yes,” Ron said. “Thank you, Professor.”

McGonagall smiled a slight, small smile, which Harry was beginning to realize was simply the way she looked, even when she was really pleased, and walked back to her desk to gather up her things, leaving the first years to cram their quills and wands and books into their bags and start arguing with each other about their schedules and which corridors to take to get to their next lesson.

The rest of the week was very busy. They had their first Defense Against the Dark Arts class on Tuesday and Astronomy on Wednesday. Thursday was their third Herbology lesson, and the first time that Neville earned the praise of a teacher; the first years were at work planting nettle seeds in small pots which would be grown in front of the windows of Greenhouse Two, which were magically sun-lit all year round. Professor Sprout, who was walking around and supervising, patted Neville on the shoulder and said, “Nicely done. I can see you’re working hard.” Neville’s round face flushed with the praise, and the pinkness in his cheeks--as well as the dirty hand-print that Professor Sprout had left on the shoulder of his robe--lasted for the rest of the lesson. Harry thought that Hermione, working beside him, looked a little put-out that Sprout had not also complimented her on her neatly-packed row of ceramic pots.

Hermione seemed to have decided that she was Harry, Ron, and Neville's friend. Despite Ron grumbling, quietly, to Harry that she was an insufferable know-it-all, there didn't seem to be any way of preventing this, and anyway, Harry didn't try particularly hard. It was nice, for the first time in his life, to have friends. Mostly, he and Ron tried to get Hermione to pair with Neville in lessons, when they could, because correcting Neville's work gave her a distraction from nagging at them, and anyway, Neville didn’t seem to mind the extra help.

In the evenings, the four of them clustered together in the Common Room, talking and going over homework. Hermione tried her best to badger the other three into doing each night’s homework the day it was assigned, so that she could review it with them, but Ron in particular was quick to lose interest and start talking about Quidditch. Neither Harry nor Hermione knew anything about the wizarding sport, and Neville, who grew up in a wizarding family but had never played, had about the same passing familiarity with it that Harry had with cricket. Ron was more than happy to explain about the various rules and players, though, and Harry was finding it interesting to begin to understand a little bit about the magical world.

Friday marked their first Potions lesson with Professor Snape. Snape, like McGonagall, began class by taking roll. He paused briefly before Ron's name, looking up from his parchment to make level eye contact with Ron. Ron slouched down in his seat, muttering, “Present,” while Harry watched quietly. Hermione sat, physically vibrating, on the edge of her seat ready to jump in and correct Professor Snape if he said anything wrong, but then he called Ron's name without comment and went on to grill Harry instead.

Harry didn’t know what he had done to incur Professor Snape’s wrath. He was no stranger to being hated--ten years of living with the Dursleys and being bullied by Dudley at school had erased any expectation that Harry might once have had that he would be treated fairly on principle--but it felt different, coming from Snape. Perhaps it was just that Harry had been hoping that this year he might be able to start fresh, without the Dursleys putting any preconceived ideas about him into his new teachers’ and classmates’ heads. But Snape’s hatred felt pointed and focused in a way that even the Dursleys’ disgust and neglect rarely had, and all the attention Harry was getting for being the Boy Who Lived was getting overwhelming. It seemed that everyone in the magical world already had an opinion on him, good or bad.

The potions lesson was interrupted after a short while by Neville, who had been partnered with Seamus Finnegan instead of Hermione for this lesson, when his cauldron violently exploded. Snape swooped over to investigate and looked over Neville, who had boils sprouting red all over his face and tears in his eyes, and ah, there was the kind of detached disgust that Harry was used to seeing from the Dursleys.

“Idiot boy,” Snape said, lazily making all the spilled potion vanish with a wave of his wand. “I suppose you added the porcupine quills before taking the cauldron off the fire?”

Neville whimpered.

Snape sent Neville to the hospital wing care of Seamus, then rounded on Harry.

"You--Potter--why didn’t you tell him not to add the quills? Thought he’d make you look good if he got it wrong?”

This was so unfair that Harry opened his mouth to argue, but Ron elbowed him in the side and shook his head warningly. Hermione sat with her lips pressed together, looking tense and unhappy, but she didn't speak either. Frustrated, Harry sat back and said nothing, letting Snape swoop past him to praise Draco Malfoy’s potion instead.

At the end of the lesson, which seemed to drag on and on, Harry, Ron, and Hermione clustered in the hallway outside the Potions classroom.

“Why did you stop me arguing with Snape?” Harry asked Ron angrily. The sight of Snape sneering down at the whimpering Neville was still playing over in his mind, and it made his blood boil, made him feel protective of Neville in a way he’d never felt before.

“I’ve heard he can get nasty,” Ron said. “No need to make him hate you anymore than he already does.”

Harry pressed his lips together, still puzzling over why Snape seemed to hold such a particular loathing for him.

“Look,” said Hermione, “if it means that much to you, why don’t we go and check on Neville in the hospital wing? It’s been long enough, he’s bound to have been treated by now.”

“Hey, didn’t you say Hagrid invited you to see him this afternoon?” Ron helpfully added. “D’you think he would mind if you brought us and Neville along?”

Harry looked between his new friends, feeling wrong-footed. He had never visited anybody in hospital before; had never had anybody to visit. The anger cooled in his stomach and he hesitantly nodded. “Alright. It can’t hurt to try, I guess?”

The hospital wing was full of white, clean-sheeted beds neatly made-up. There were only a few students there, on a Friday afternoon, and they found Neville sitting on a bed, seeming mostly recovered.

His face lit up when he saw them. “Hi!”

Harry realized that he had no idea what to say, but to his relief, Ron and Hermione seemed more than happy to pick up his slack in the conversation.

“Are you feeling alright?” Hermione asked, and then with barely concealed eagerness, “Did they use a healing spell on you? I’ve read about a few…”

Ron interrupted. “Listen mate, it was not right, what Snape said to you. But don’t worry about it; Snape hates everybody and especially the Gryffindors, from what I’ve heard.”

Neville smiled worriedly at them. “Thank you. It was my fault, though.” He twisted his hands into the bed’s white sheets. “I added the needles in too soon. It’s fine, I’m just…” he shrugged. “I’m glad I have your help with homework, at least. Maybe I won’t fail the whole class that way.”

“Bollocks,” Ron said, making Hermione gasp and glance around, Harry assumed to scan for any adults within hearing distance. “Snape was way out of line.”

Harry did his best to look reassuring. “It’s just the first week,” he said. “I’m sure you’ll have plenty of chances to get it right.”

Neville did not look reassured, so Harry cast around for another topic of conversation. “Anyway, we were just going to visit Hagrid. Would you like to join us?”

Neville frankly beamed at him, and Harry was glad they had come up to visit Neville, after all.

Hagrid gave them tea and horrible rock cakes, which Harry, Ron, and Hermione all gave up on after a few polite nibbles, but which Neville, much to their amazement, consumed in their entirety and with perfect politeness, giving no hint of the fact that the cakes were as likely to break a tooth as their name suggested.

Hagrid was very kind to Ron and Hermione and Neville, as Harry had expected from how Hagrid had treated him since they'd met. After asking about Ron's brothers and Neville's grandmother, and listening to Hermione tell him about her muggle family, Hagrid's face softened and he said, "I heard about the staircase, Ron. I reckon you're right brave, comin' out like that. Your sibling Bill will be proud."

Ron's face had turned red and muttered, "Thanks."

"You lot remind me of meself, a bit, to be honest," Hagrid went on mistily. “Missfit, but Hogwarts gave me a home.”

They told Hagrid how Snape had treated Neville and Harry, and he began to reassure them that Snape hated most of the students equally. Harry stopped listening, though; his attention was caught on a newspaper clipping that had gotten pushed into the middle of the table, among the tea things. It read, “Gringotts Break-In, 31 July,” and detailed how a vault had been robbed, after having been emptied that very day.

“Hagrid,” said Harry, putting his finger on the clipping, “that’s my birthday. That’s the day we were in Diagon Alley!”

Hagrid grunted and tried to give him another rock cake, not quite meeting his eye.

“Do you think it could have been happening while we were there?” Harry tried to ask, but Hagrid determinedly changed the subject, and started to talk about dragons, and Harry gave up.

*

Draco Malfoy was having a difficult week. He was conflicted. The school was full of gossip about Ron Weasley and the disappearing staircase. How it had collapsed under him, dumping him to the floor. It was just the sort of opportunity that Draco usually would have jumped at, after the way that Ron Weasley and Harry Potter had humiliated him by rejecting his friendship. They deserved to suffer for their rudeness, and Draco had every intention of making them.

There were plenty of rumors about Potter too, and to be honest, Draco felt that people ought to be doing a lot less talking about Potter and a lot more talking about _him_.

The story about the staircase was the perfect opportunity to humiliate Weasley like Weasley and Potter had humiliated him. But...

But he couldn’t stop thinking about Potter in the Entrance Hall that first night, how his skin had glowed like bronze in the candle light, his tousled black hair, his bright, furious green eyes, the white scar slashed jagged like lightning across his forehead. As he let his rejected hand fall limply to his side, Draco’s only thought had been, _I cannot tell Father about this_.

Draco needed a different plan.

**Author's Note:**

> If you want to talk about Harry Potter characters being trans, I'd love to hear from you in a comment, or else feel free to come fanboy/fangirl/fanenby with me on tumblr at @fromthemouthofkings!


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